Mental anguish / David Kahler's grief over his bipolar son's suicide was worsened after Concord police came knocking

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The sun hovered low over Pleasant Hill that afternoon, like a lemon lozenge hanging from a cloudless sky. Smoke wafted from the chicken grilling on the barbecue. People -- young, old and in between -- carried paper plates loaded precariously with potato salad and burgers. Pop music served as the soundtrack for a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the park.

This was the annual picnic of the Contra Costa chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. So, of course, David Kahler was there. He was working hard, too, from setup to cleanup. A former president of the alliance, Kahler, 70, flipped burgers, made the rounds greeting folks, clapped backs and cracked jokes.

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Outsiders would have never guessed that, a month before, Kahler's only son, John Kahler, 32, had flung himself off the Golden Gate Bridge to his death.

They would have seen nary a crack in David Kahler's affable exterior as he sat cross-legged on a shady patch of park grass. Friends would approach, ask haltingly, "You OK, Dave?"

And Kahler, treating it as the most prosaic of questions, would smile and say, "Fine. And you?" As if nothing was wrong, as if his whole world hadn't fallen apart.

As if he hadn't been interrupted in his grief to defend his deceased son -- and, by association, everyone dealing with mental-health issues -- on every TV newscast, at 5, 6 and 11, for more than a week against accusations that John Kahler may have slain a 49-year-old Antioch woman on the Contra Costa Canal Trail.

END TO FAMILY PRIVACY

Because Kahler's son's condition had been diagnosed a decade ago as bipolar disorder and a form of schizophrenia, because he had a history of run-ins with authorities during manic episodes, because the Kahlers lived three-quarters of a mile from the trail, Concord police made John the primary suspect in the beating death of Kathleen Aiello-Loreck -- and went public with it.

Newspapers, including The Chronicle, ran headlines such as "Mentally ill man focus of probe," and the hometown Contra Costa Times even published a front-page map showing the Kahlers' residence. Soon, TV vans lined the curbs of Kahler's suburban street, klieg lights shining as coiffed newscasters did stand-up reports.

All the while, Kahler maintained his son's innocence. He told detectives that John was under supervision at home the entire day of the murder. He told them again when the police returned to seize John's car, David's computer and a washing machine.

David Kahler volunteered for a lie-detector test and passed it. Even after police tests showed no genetic match between John's DNA and evidence gathered on the body, police did not release the results. Only after David Kahler went on TV a week later and announced it himself did police confirm that there was no match. Police spokesmen still refer to John Kahler as "a person of interest. "

TIME TO GRIEVE

Media and police have mostly stopped hounding the Kahlers now. David has been able to exhale, to reflect and try to accept his loss. And yet, as he sits on the grass picking at blades during the picnic, Kahler admits he has lingering resentment about how quick people were to make the leap in logic: Mentally ill man equals murderer.

"I realize there are plenty of blind alleys in police investigations," Kahler said. "But the police immediately jumped to conclusions. You could see it in their eyes when my daughter told them John had committed suicide. They thought, 'Case solved.' And then they go and share it in the media like some gossiping housewives."

Since joining the Contra Costa chapter of the alliance in 1995, Kahler has fought for the rights of the mentally ill. He has written essays, printed flyers, attended public meetings and helped organize fund-raisers to raise awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding the mentally ill.

But it wasn't until his son's death that Kahler experienced the full force of the fear and discrimination those with mental illness -- and those who love them -- face.

"This whole thing was like an atomic bomb that went off in our family," Kahler said. "It's been very hard to deal with. The one thing I want people to know is that you can still have a loving relationship with a son or daughter with mental illness. It's not easy. But you've got to love them. You have no choice."

John's sister, Elisabeth, said she has received many letters and calls from people living with mental illness, saying they "couldn't believe how badly John was being treated in the media." She said it's made it difficult for her to grieve.

"I can't really talk to people about this," said Elisabeth, 35. "You can't describe it. It's not (out of) shame. It's just an inability to convey such a horrific story. . . . By the end, even people that know us feel like they've been run over by a Mack truck. My brother never deserved to be remembered like this."

Left unmentioned in media reports were details of John's life, his struggle with the illness and how his family dealt with the stress of having a bipolar living with them.

The alliance, which has chapters throughout the nation, exists to give families help and support as well as to educate others about mental illness. Kahler has been a vocal proponent of a plan by Crestwood Behavioral Health to open a private treatment and recovery center in Pleasant Hill. He is well versed on all issues surrounding mental health and has attended numerous lectures and seminars.

FACING A SON'S DEMONS

But to show the extent to which mental illness takes a toll on a family, Kahler acknowledges that he made mistakes in dealing with his son's disorder. In many ways, he said, he was not unlike "co-dependents" who ignore a child's drug problem, hoping it will go away.

"There was an awful lot of ignoring going on," he said. "He'll have a good couple of weeks and you think, well, if he can get to this level and maintain it, maybe he can climb to another level and be more functioning. It's only been now, the month or so after he's gone, that I can look back and say that he was chronically, severely mentally ill.

"I always used to think this was going to go away, like a summer cold. My kind of denial was, 'It'll be better tomorrow or next day or next month.' I ignored it. I pushed it away. It's survival."

Such behavior, alliance members say, is common for parents of adult children with mental illness. Kahler's friend Kate Olmscheid, whose husband, Ray, is NAMI-Contra Costa's current president, said even the most aware parents get caught up in trying to keep a semblance of normality in their lives.

"David was all about survival," Olmscheid said. "It's problem-solution, problem-solution. Keep it going, day to day. You don't have time to look at the big picture. David's a lot stronger than most parents. He's not broken, like most. He's not destroyed inside and out. He's somehow kept that grit. Most parents become sick themselves, very depressed, barely alive and kicking. It takes so much out of you being the parent of someone mentally ill."

Kahler, who sought out the group just as John was being diagnosed as bipolar, says he knows many well-meaning parents who can't cope.

"I have some friends who sold everything and went up to the state of Washington to get away from their chronically ill son," he said. "They couldn't control him. They needed to survive. They couldn't breathe."

THE MEANING OF HOME

That was an option Kahler never considered, even in the darkest days of John's illness. It's just not what family is about, he says.

"What I got from my mother is this: Home is the place where they have to take you in," he said. "When John started to do things that (would make) a perfectly reasonable person say, 'That's it, go on, get out (of) the house,' I couldn't do it. Even into his 20s and 30s, I was trying to hope against hope something would change -- a different medication, or he'd find a psychiatrist he really liked, or even a spiritual awakening."

Kahler would look at his grown-up son battling deep depression or manic episodes and see the quiet, polite blond boy with the piercing blue eyes John once was. He thought if he could only repel the demons in his son's psyche that John could be a productive member of society.

Nothing in John's typically suburban childhood in Concord gave any indication of the struggles ahead in adulthood -- the three DUI convictions, the cocaine and methamphetamine use, the brief and inexplicable bursts of anger.

His dad was a small-business man; his mom, Agnes (now deceased), a registered nurse in San Francisco. Elisabeth, whom John always called "Bets," was three years older and protective of her soft-spoken brother. It wasn't until John entered high school that what David calls "aberrant behavior" surfaced.

HINTS OF MENTAL ILLNESS

John experimented with drugs and alcohol, David said. He became even more introverted, working on cars more than hanging out with friends. He was adept at electronics and wired an elaborate model railroad operation. He went to the senior prom, his sister said, but only because the girl asked him.

Even though there is a history of bipolar disorder on his wife's side of the family, Kahler never suspected, in those days, that his son was afflicted.

"Youths can be a rebellious and hard to deal with in teen years," he said. "Then you mix in meth and cocaine and an overusage of alcohol, periodically, and your first inclination is to think the behavior can be blamed on those things. We had no premonition back then."

In his early 20s, however, John's behavior became more erratic. He held down a good job as an auto mechanic at a transmission shop in Walnut Creek. But he started getting into minor scrapes with the law -- traffic violations, mostly. He got the first of his DUIs back then, too. The problem was, John would not pay his tickets and would get summoned to court. At that point, David said, John's paranoia and anger surfaced.

STRANGE BEHAVIOR ESCALATES

"I remember one time (in 1994) in his 20s, he had three misdemeanor warrants out for his arrest, and my wife and I had taken him to the courthouse to appear. He drove this blue Mustang convertible, and I remember he got out of the car, crouched over . . . and growled, 'Just get out of here.' We figured he just didn't want his parents there. And he seemed relatively competent, so we let him go. But it turned out he skipped the hearing."

It wasn't until the mid-'90s that Kahler started to suspect that drugs and alcohol were merely "self-medicating" tools to mask his son's mental illness. John became shy to the point of being socially phobic.

"He needed some pants one day, so I took him to the SunValley mall to Macy's," Kahler said. "At that point, I learned that he no longer knew how to function in a retail store. He didn't know how to call a clerk to take things up to the cash register. He became very socially awkward. We'd go out to a restaurant when my brother would visit from Minnesota and John would sit at another table and not say a word.

"One day he came home and told me that everybody on BART was staring at him and talking only about him. I kind of laughed it off at the time. I wasn't educated enough in mental illness at that time to pick up on it. Or I invented reasons to explain it away. But I was starting to understand. I was always hoping that next week would be better, that he'd find a better job and that, like a needle getting into a groove of a record, he would be OK."

The needle skipped once too often, though. In summer 1995, Kahler felt he could no longer control John, who was extremely lethargic and unresponsive, deeply depressed. Not knowing what else to do, Kahler visited the Concord police.

"What do you if there's someone in your family who's mentally off balance?" he asked at the front desk.

The officer explained about calling in a 5150 -- where a person can be taken to the county hospital against his will and held 72 hours for a psychiatric evaluation if deemed a danger to himself or others.

SEEKING POLICE INVOLVEMENT

A year later, Kahler returned to the police station. There was a warrant out for John's arrest for failure to appear for misdemeanor violations. Exasperated because he could not prod John into appearing in court, Kahler sought a 5150, the first of four times he resorted to it before his son's suicide.

"I was very uncomfortable," he said. "Here I am calling the police on my own son. But at the rate he was going, it would never stop. He'd just get worse and worse."

Kahler wanted treatment for his son. He figured that one way to keep John out of jail for DUI or failure to appear for traffic violations was to get him into a treatment program. John balked. He spent time in the psychiatric unit of the Contra Costa County Jail before being transferred to a mental health treatment center north of Napa. But John, according to his dad, did not continue his treatment as an outpatient, refusing to take lithium and other mood stabilizers.

In 1997, John had his third DUI but failed to appear. When Concord police came to the door, John lunged toward an officer, was sprayed with Mace, then bolted into the backyard. Fearing a hostage situation, six police cars quickly surrounded the Kahler home. John gave himself up without incident.

Several weeks later, in court, John grew angry when talking with his public defender about a plea bargain for the DUIs. Though he was handcuffed and his legs shackled, John bolted out of his chair and tried to attack Contra Costa Superior County Judge William Kolin. He jumped on Kolin's back before guards pulled him off. John received three years in state prison for the assault, but the sentence was suspended once he agreed to psychiatric treatment.

TREATMENT'S MIXED RESULTS

Kahler thought his son would improve with treatment, but he said the results were mixed. On probation, John looked for a job as an auto mechanic and tried three times to live on his own. Each time he failed.

"He couldn't handle anything, couldn't handle the hygiene, never paid a bill," Kahler said. "Once I walked into his apartment in Pleasant Hill and saw a phone bill from months ago. I told him he better pay it, and he looked at me blankly. So it was back home."

Elisabeth says home life with John was mostly tranquil.

"Those episodes were very occasionally," she said. "Before we'd have to 5150 him, we'd feel an impending situation coming on. It's like preparing for battle, doing the best you can to make sure no one gets hurt, especially him."

Earlier this year, living at home, John attacked his father. It came during one of John's manic episodes. David was on the phone and John, thinking his father was "calling the authorities on him," hit him on the side of the head.

"I didn't fall, so he hit me again," David said. "Then he gets down on his knees and continues to pummel me. When he stopped, I grabbed the car keys and got out of there."

John returned to a treatment center and David took out a restraining order against him. Once released, John ended up living in a $500-a-month Concord apartment, which his parents paid for, with no furniture save a sleeping bag and two cardboard boxes.

But David found he couldn't turn his back on his son for long. After a few weeks, John was coming over for dinner. Then, one night, he asked if he could sleep over. He never left until the morning in May when he drove to the Golden Gate Bridge and jumped off.

"People would sometimes say to me, 'He mistreats you. Throw him out. Don't you know how to discipline him?' But it wasn't like that," Kahler said. "You can't leave your son to live under a bridge somewhere. Close to the end, he was acting really calm and more together than we'd seen him. Looking back on it, I guess he'd made up his mind to end his life."

AFTER THE STORM

The Kahler home is quieter these days. The police have returned David's computer. The family bought a new washing machine. A sense of calm is present. But the place also feels a little lonely, David said.

"When you're living with someone with mental illness, it's tough on a parent," he said. "It never stops -- until it stops when they take their own life."

Kahler paused, fighting back tears. Still sitting on the grass at the picnic in Pleasant Hill, he pointed to a red sports car in the parking lot.

"That convertible belongs to a 75-year-old who has been diagnosed as a manic-depressive since his early 20s," he said. "His family stuck with him and they worked it out. He's the example I looked to with John. He gave me hope. He gives other families dealing with mental illness hope, too."

Where to go Those dealing with the mental illness of a family member can contact the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill at (916) 567-0163 or at its Web site,
ca.nami.org
.